Editing Frederick Delius (section)

===Stylistic development===
From the conventional forms of his early music, over the course of his creative career Delius developed a style easily recognisable and "unlike the work of any other", according to Payne.<ref name = grove/> As he gradually found his voice, Delius replaced the methods developed during his creative infancy with a more mature style in which Payne discerns "an increasing richness of chord structure, bearing with it its own subtle means of contrast and development".<ref name= Stylistic/> [[Hubert J. Foss|Hubert Foss]], the [[Oxford University Press]]'s musical editor during the 1920s and 1930s, writes that rather than creating his music from the known possibilities of instruments, Delius "thought the sounds first" and then sought the means for producing these particular sounds.<ref name= Foss>{{cite journal|last= Foss|first= Hubert|title= The Instrumental Music of Frederick Delius|jstor= 943987|journal= Tempo|publisher= Cambridge University Press|number= 26|date= Winter 1952–53|pages=30–37}} {{subscription}}</ref> Delius's full stylistic maturity dates from around 1907, when he began to write the series of works on which his main reputation rests.<ref name = Stylistic>{{cite journal|author-link= Anthony Payne|last= Payne| first= Anthony|title= Delius's Stylistic Development|url= http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6252204|journal= Tempo|publisher= Cambridge University Press|number= 60|date= Winter 1961–62|pages=6–16|access-date=23 January 2011}} {{subscription}}</ref> In the more mature works Foss observes Delius's increasing rejection of conventional forms such as [[sonata]] or concerto; Delius's music, he comments, is "certainly not architectural; nearer to painting, especially to the ''[[Pointillism|pointilliste]]'' style of design".<ref name= Foss/> The painting analogy is echoed by Cardus.<ref name= Cardus>{{cite journal|author-link= Neville Cardus|last= Cardus|first= Neville|title= Frederick Delius|journal= The Guardian|page=8|date= 25 January 1962}}</ref>

====Towards recognition====
Delius's first orchestral compositions were, in Christopher Palmer's words, the work of "an insipid if charming water-colourist".<ref>Palmer, p. 5</ref> The ''Florida Suite'' (1887, revised 1889) is "an expertly crafted synthesis of Grieg and Negroid Americana",<ref>Palmer, p. 7</ref> while Delius's first opera ''Irmelin'' (1890–1892) lacks any identifiably Delian passages. Its harmony and modulation are conventional, and the work bears the clear fingerprints of Wagner and Grieg. Payne asserts that none of the works prior to 1895 are of lasting interest. The first noticeable stylistic advance is evident in ''[[Koanga]]'' (1895–1897), with richer chords and faster harmonic rhythms; here we find Delius "feeling his way towards the vein that he was soon to tap so surely".<ref name= Stylistic/> In ''Paris'' (1899), the orchestration owes a debt to [[Richard Strauss]]; its passages of quiet beauty, says Payne, nevertheless lack the deep personal involvement of the later works. ''Paris'', the final work of Delius's apprentice years, is described by Foss as "one of the most complete, if not the greatest, of Delius's musical paintings".<ref name= Foss/>
[[File:Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe 1.jpg|thumb|left|Woodcut illustration (1919) of the young lovers from [[Gottfried Keller]]'s original story, which became Delius's opera ''A Village Romeo and Juliet'']]
In each of the major works written in the years after ''Paris'', Delius combined orchestral and vocal forces. The first of these works was ''[[A Village Romeo and Juliet]]'', a music drama which departs from the normal operatic structure of acts and scenes and tells its story of tragic love in a series of tableaux. Musically it shows a considerable advance in style from the early operas of the apprentice years. The entr'acte known as "The Walk to the Paradise Garden" is described by Heseltine as showing "all the tragic beauty of mortality&nbsp;... concentrated and poured forth in music of overwhelming, almost intolerable poignancy".<ref name= heseltine>{{cite journal|author-link= Peter Warlock|last= Heseltine|first= Philip|title= Some Notes on Delius and his Music|jstor= 909510|journal= The Musical Times|date= March 1915|pages=137–42|volume=56}} {{subscription}}</ref> In this work Delius begins to achieve the texture of sound that characterised all his later compositions.<ref name= Stylistic/> Delius's music is often assumed to lack melody and form. Cardus argues that melody, while not a primary factor, is there abundantly, "floating and weaving itself into the texture of shifting harmony" – a characteristic which Cardus believes is shared only by Debussy.<ref name= Cardus/>

Delius's next work, ''Appalachia'', introduces a further feature that recurred in later pieces – the use of the voice instrumentally in wordless singing, in this case depicting the distant plantation songs that had inspired Delius at Solano Grove.<ref name= Stylistic/> Although Payne argues that ''Appalachia'' shows only a limited advance in technique, Fenby identifies one orchestral passage as the first expression of Delius's idea of "the transitoriness of all mortal things mirrored in nature". Hereafter, whole works rather than brief passages would be informed by this idea.<ref>Fenby (1971), p. 55</ref> The transitional phase of the composer's career concludes with three further vocal pieces: ''[[Sea Drift (Delius)|Sea Drift]]'' (1903), ''[[A Mass of Life]]'' (1904–05), and ''[[Songs of Sunset]]'' (1906–07). Payne salutes each of these as masterpieces, in which the Delian style struggles to emerge in its full ripeness.<ref name= Stylistic/> Fenby describes ''A Mass of Life'' as standing outside the general progression of Delius's work, "a vast parenthesis", unlike anything else he wrote, but nevertheless an essential ingredient in his development.<ref>Fenby (1971), p. 58</ref>

====Full flowering====
''Brigg Fair'' (1907) announced the composer's full stylistic maturity, the first of the pieces for orchestra that confirm Delius's status as a musical poet, with the influences of Wagner and Grieg almost entirely absent.<ref name= Stylistic/> The work was followed in the next few years by ''[[In a Summer Garden]]'' (1908), ''Life's Dance'', ''Summer Night on the River'' (both 1911) and ''[[On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring]]'' (1912). The critic R. W. S. Mendl described this sequence as "exquisite nature studies", with a unity and shape lacking in the earlier formal tone poems.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mendl |first=R.W.S. |title=The Art of the Symphonic Poem |journal=The Musical Quarterly |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=443–462 |date=July 1932 |doi=10.1093/mq/xviii.3.443}} {{subscription}}</ref> These works became part of the standard English concert repertory, and helped to establish the character of Delius's music in the English concert-goer's mind, although according to [[Ernest Newman]], the concentration on these works to the neglect of his wider output may have done Delius as much harm as good.<ref>{{cite news |last=Newman |first=Ernest |author-link=Ernest Newman |title=His Country At Last Acclaims Delius |newspaper=The New York Times Quarterly |date=16 March 1930 |pages=SM7}}</ref> The typical mature Delian orchestral sound is apparent in these works, through the division of the strings into ten or more sections, punctuated by woodwind comments and decorations.<ref name= Stylistic/> In the ''North Country Sketches'' of 1913–14, Delius divides the strings into 12 parts, and harps, horns, clarinets and bassoons evoke a lifeless winter scene.<ref>Fenby (1971), p. 72</ref> In Payne's view, the ''Sketches'' are the high-water mark of Delius's compositional skill,<ref name= Stylistic/> although Fenby awards the accolade to the later ''[[Eventyr (Once Upon a Time)]]'' (1917).<ref>Fenby (1971), p. 74</ref>

During this period Delius did not confine himself to purely orchestral works; he produced his final opera, ''[[Fennimore and Gerda]]'' (1908–1910), like ''A Village Romeo and Juliet'' written in tableau form, but in his mature style. His choral works of the period, notably ''An Arabesque'' and ''[[A Song of the High Hills]]'' (both 1911) are among the most radical of Delius's writings in their juxtapositions of unrelated chords.<ref name= grove/> The latter work, entirely wordless, contains some of the most difficult choral music in existence, according to Heseltine.<ref name="Some Notes"/> After 1915, Delius turned his attention to traditional sonata, chamber and concerto forms, which he had largely left alone since his apprentice days. Of these pieces Payne highlights two: the Violin Concerto (1916), as an example of how, writing in unfamiliar genres, Delius remained stylistically true to himself; and the Cello Sonata of 1917, which, lacking the familiarity of an orchestral palate, becomes a melodic triumph.<ref name= Stylistic/> Cardus's verdict, however, is that Delius's chamber and concerto works are largely failures.<ref name= Cardus/> After 1917, according to Payne, there was a general deterioration in the quantity and quality of Delius's output as illness took hold, although Payne exempts the incidental music to ''Hassan'' (1920–1923) from condemnation, believing it to contain some of Delius's best work.<ref name= grove/><ref name= Stylistic/>

====Final phase====
The four-year association with Fenby from 1929 produced two major works, and several smaller pieces often drawn from unpublished music from Delius's early career. The first of the major works was the orchestral ''[[A Song of Summer]]'', based on sketches that Delius had previously collected under the title of ''A Poem of Life and Love''.<ref>Fenby (1981), p. 132</ref> In dictating the new beginning of this work, Delius asked Fenby to "imagine that we are sitting on the cliffs in the heather, looking out over the sea".<ref>Fenby (1971) p. 70</ref> This does not, says Fenby, indicate that the dictation process was calm and leisurely; the mood was usually frenzied and nerve-wracking.<ref>Fenby (1981), pp. 145–47</ref> The other major work, a setting of [[Walt Whitman]] poems with the title ''Songs of Farewell'', was an even more alarming prospect to Fenby: "the complexity of thinking in so many strands, often all at once; the problems of orchestral and vocal balance; the wider area of possible misunderstandings&nbsp;..." combined to leave Delius and his helper exhausted after each session of work – yet both these works were ready for performance in 1932.<ref name= F88>Fenby (1971), pp. 88–89</ref> Of the music in this final choral work, Beecham wrote of its "hard, masculine vigour, reminiscent in mood and fibre of some of the great choral passages in ''[[A Mass of Life]]''".<ref>Beecham (1975), p. 208</ref> Payne describes the work as "bracing and exultant, with in places an almost [[Gustav Holst|Holstian]] clarity".<ref name= Stylistic/>